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Contents
First published J 9L)l)
by Routledge
I I Nl:W Petter LlIlC, London EC4P 4FE
Si111U[t<.lllCOlL<.,!y puhlished in the USA and Cnuadn
hy Routledge
29 West 35tb Street. New York, NY 1000 I
Preface vii
Acknowledgements x
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians xi
The Egyptian kingship xxx
The gods of Egypt xxxv
Chronology xlvi
Rank, title and office in Ancient Egypt liii
Maps of Ancient Egypt Ix
First published ill paperback 2002
Routledge is an im/Jriflf of the Taylor Cl' Francis Croup
,,', 1999,2002 Micbael Rice
The right of Michael Rice to be identified as the Author of
this Work has been asserted hv him in accordnnc c with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 19SB
Typeset ill Sa bon hy Routledge
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
TJ lnrcrnntional Ltd, Pndsrow, Cornwall
WHO'S WHO IN ANCIENT EGYPT I
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by ;my clt-c-r ronic,
mechanical, or other means. now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission
ill writing from the publishers.
Glossary 226
List of abbreviations 232
Bibliography 234
Appendices 238
Appendix 1: entries by occupation 240
Appendix 2: entries in chronological sequence 250
Appendix 3: Ancient Egypt in museum collections 255
British Library CLltaloguing in Puhlicanon Data
A catalogue record for this book is ..w adable from the British Libr.u-y
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book h.is hccn applied for
ISBN 0-415-1 544X-0 (Hbk)
ISBN 0-415-15449-9 (Phk)
1
Preface
\11\ "",
,,111\ presumes to compile a work such as Who's Who in Ancient Egypt
",II 1,,,,1 I,"",df somewhat in the position of C. G . jung when he felt obliged
,,, ,,' ", )"/'/('11/ Sermones ad Mortuos iSeoen Sermons to the Dead) as a
... " .. 'I'" II, ,', it seemed to him, of finding his house infested with the spirits of the
,I, "~I; .I, ,",""Iing instruction. Though the spirits of the dead have their place in
1"'1'" "' r uv.t l legend, for they were said to be the forerunners of the historic
,II" """ " ,,I lungs, it is they who arc the instructors in this case, summarily
,I, ,",",I,"!,. ,"elusion. The compiler is merely the scribe, sitting meekly with legs
• l r
,I, ,1\\'.,;ling the opportunity to set down the record of their lives at their
,j", ,II"", " s..lf-effacing servant of Thoth.
11/'" \\'/11' in Ancient Egypt attempts to identify the most celebrated of the
uut-. ,1",1 .Luuihters of Egypt, whose attainments forged its unique civilisation.
1111' 'I ,I"" ·,,",,ks to record the names of less august figures, whose lives may throw
, tru "I, ',I I,", particularly focused shaft of light to show what it may have been
Iii, I" IIII' III l.gypt at the height of its power and prosperity, or in one of its not
,"I" 'I'" "I pnil)ds of hardship and disorder. Some have been included because
d"" I"", ,"' c.ircers illumine an aspect of the Egyptian experience which may be
""1,,,"1,," "r unusual. In general, the Who's Who records those Egyptians whom
ii" ",11"1 I" Lgypt or to an Egyptian collection in one of the great museums
.. I", I, 1,,,",,' so considerable a quantity (though still only a tiny fraction) of the
.. ".I ,,' I!~yptian artists and artificers, might be expected to encounter.
1\., '''',,' "I their concern to perpetuate their names, a procedure essential if
,I. ,",11,1" w;lS to be achieved, it must surely be that we know many more of the
,,,I, ,1"1 III/'. "f Ancient Egypt than we do of any other ancient culture of
""'1' ",hi .. .mriquiry, Who's \Y,lho in Ancient Egypt cannot in the nature of
,/",,, 1"'I .. nd to be exhaustive; at best it can only be representative. It can only
" , ,,', I , ..ully limited number of entries; but how many 'Third Prophets of
I,,,,,,, /I', ii, priests', 'Sole Companions' or 'Singers in the Temple before the
,,,I
'" '\1 ill' though they doubtless were, might non-professional readers be
t: " ,I 10 .icccpt? But there must be many who fulfil the criteria indicated
.I" , "I", h.ivc, for one reason or another, not been given space bere; if so, the
r',
..
VII
Preface
Preface
compiler, not himself a professional Egyptologist, would be pleased to hear of
them, possibly for inclusion in future editions.
The entries in Who's Who in Ancient Egypt are listed in an English-language
alphabetical order. The Egyptians did not, in any strict sense, employ an
alphabet, at least until late times. The sequence which is conventionally adopted
for the hieroglyphic characters which stand for individual letters is entirely
different from the alphabetical order familiar to a European reader; to adopt such
a sequence would be perverse and probably deeply confusing. The hieroglyphic
script was perhaps the most elegant ever produced, certainly amongst the most
complex and subtle; it was reserved mainly for monumental inscriptions and the
most important documentary uses. Its two companions, hieratic and demotic,
were successfully developed for more everyday use; the last-named was
effectively a form of 'speed writing'.
The transcription of Egyptian names presents another hazard. Since the
Egyptiaus did not as a general rule write vowels, and their language involved
several consonants that an English speaker, for example, does not usc, cannot tell
apart, or might not even recognise as meaningful consonants. Scholarly
transcriptions are complicated, artificial and scarcely pronounceable. The
rendering of Egyptian names in a book such as this must therefore be a matter
of compromise - a compromise which in all probability is not completely
consistent. Names which when transliterated into a European language would
start with an 'A' for example, would in Egyprian be written with the group which
formed the compound of the name and which an educated Egyptian would know
would be articulated as if it began with the sound which English renders as 'A'. In
common with general Egyptological practice today, names have been rendered in
a fashion which corresponds more precisely to the Egyptian original than to the
Greek, popular in earlier scholarship: thus 'Amenhotep' rather than 'Arneno­
phis', though, of course Arnenhorcp itself is an Anglicisation. Similarly, it adopts
usages such as 'Khnum-Khufu' for the king associated with the Great Pyramid,
rather than the name by which he was known to the Greeks, 'Cheops'.
'Chephren' and 'Mycerinos' are to be found in association with their pyramids in
their correct names of 'Khafre' and 'Menkaure'. In such cases, however, what
may still be the more familiar, alternative name is shown in parenthesis. In the
case of Late Period kings, particularly from the Twenty-Seventh Dynasty
onwards, the Greek forms have generally been employed, as by that time their
usage had become widespread outside Egypt.
The influence of Greek writers and their versions of Egyptian names is
particularly evident when dealing with the familiar names of the Egyptian gods.
Most of those which are in common use today derive from Greek transliterations.
These have become so established that it would he pretentious in this context to
insist on Djehuty rather than Thoth (or Djeh14ty-mes rather than the familiar
royal name, Thutmose), on Hem rather than Horus, Aset than Isis, Asar or Wesir
for Osiris. In all these and other similar instances the names of the gods appear in
their familiar, Graecised forms.
The substance of the entries themselves has been drawn from a wide range of
Vll!
1f;
published sources; a number of these are now of some age, as Egyptologists of
earlier decades seem often to have been more interested in the lives of individual
Fgyptians than in the SOCi;lJ, economic and historical forces which determined the
character of their society and which have tended more to occnpy the attention of
contemporary scholars. In some cases there are anomalies and variations, a
consequence of the influence of a particular researcher's native tongue, when
expressed in Fnglish. In general, the form of the names given here conforms with
the principal source or original of the entry; if the original transcription has not
.ilways hccn retained it is because of :1 more recent, widespread acceptance of a
revised form.
The principal publications consulted are listed in the Bibliography and in the
individual entries; amongst the most productive sources are museum and
exhibition catulogucs and books which review specific collections. These,
because they are often intended for public information as well as for the use of
scholars, frequently contain valuable material relating to the lives and careers of
individual Egyptians.
Most of the entries in Who's Who in Ancient Egypt are supported by
hibliographical references. In a number of cases objects - statues or inscriptions
lor example - which bear on the subject of the entry may be identified by the
museum in which they arc exhihited. With some of the subjects, the more
.issertivc of the kings for instance, the sheer number of their images surviving
precludes any meaningful selection; indeed, a choice would often be invidious. In
I he case of lesser known subjects, however, it may be helpful to have the existence
"f a relevant artefact noted; wherever possible the museum accession number of
I he object concerned is identified. A summary of the relevant museum holdings
referred to in the entries is given in Index 3.
It should be noted that numbered references refer to pages in the publication
«oucerned, with the exception of Breasted 1906 and Kitchen 1986, where the
numbers relate to one or more paragraphs.
Cross references to entries in the Who's Who, and to those in the Glossary, are
«.tpitalised. The names of non-Egyptian subjects, other than those who were
recognised as kings of Egypt, are enclosed in square brackets.
I
IX
Ac kn owl edge m e nts
Encountering the Ancient
Egyptians
The obligations of the author of a work such as this present are multiple and
various. First, to the legions of scholars who f\:lve excavated, studied, rranslatcd,
drawn, photographed, conserved and commented on the products of the three
thousand and more years covered by this boo k.
Then to those who have helped in the book's production, bringing it to
fulfilment.
Who's Who ill Ancient r~gypl is, in the words of the memorable description of the
London Telephone Directory, 'a book about people'. Specifically, it is a surnmar y
rendering of the lives of a selection of the people who lived in (or in some cases
visited) the Nile Valley during a period of something over 3,000 years, from the
end of the fourth millennium (c. 3100 Be) until approximately 200 AD.
Inevitably, the result is the product of a highly selective process; those whose
names appear are, not surprisingly, the men and women of whose lives records
exist in one form or another. Generally, such records may be expected to speak of
those individuals who achieved enough in their lifetimes or who were of a
sufficiently exalted rank to ensure that some sort of memorial was set down in
stone, if the inscription was intended to be monumental, or on the papyrus on
which Egyptian writing was preserved for more transient or simply less expensive
records. Sometimes the only record of a life will be contained in another's
memorial.
The recording and preservation of an Egyptiau's name was of great importance
because if the name survived then the individual's vitnl essence, the life force
which nnirnutcd him or her, would continue to exist, if not for all eternity (the
Egyptians were unsure about this) then at least for 'millions of years'. The names
of those who appear here have achieved this prerequisite of lasting identity; this
present record will merely serve to provide another element of insurance for
them, in the perpetuation of 'the name'.
This having hecn said, it will be clear that most of those whose names are
recorded in this volume are, one way or the other, the elite of the dead of Ancient
Egypt. Many of those whose names are known owe their posthumous identity to
the happenstance of archaeology; indeed it may be said that with the exception,
generally speaking, of the very greatest of the inhabitants of the Valley whose
names might be inscribed in or on the superb monuments with which they were
identified, the post-mortem celebrity of most of them is the product of the
painstaking work of generations of Egyptologists. It is to these scholars that the
Ancient Egyptians, if they are enjoying the benefits of survival after death which
by the remembrance of their names they hoped to ensure, are properly indebted.
To my friend Andrew Wheatcroft who proposed my name as the compiler of
the \'1//;0'5 Who and in doing so gave me one of the most agreeable assignments of
my writing career, and to Routledge for accepting his proposal and inviting rue to
undertake it.
I am especially indebted to Jacqueline Pegg, of the Institute of Archaeology,
University College London, who has been invaluahle in checking chronologies,
relations flips and a multitude of facts, 'lI1d ensuring that wherever possible the
conventionally accepted form of transliteration of names has been used. I am
equally grateful to Professor John Tait, Edwards Professor of Egyptology at UCL,
who introduced Jacqueline to me. I am deeply grateful to Sandra MacKenzi«
Smith, herself a dedicated Egyptophile, who has heen invaluable in editing the
various disks on which Who's Who ill Ancient Egypt was compiled. It goes
without saying (though of course I am sayiug it) that any errors surviving are
entirely mine.
x
Xl
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
Then ag.tin, some of the most influential of the Ancient Egyptians who left an
enduring impression on the development of their country arc unknown by reason
of having lived in pre-literate times. This is a sadly unjust situation, for many of
them must have been men (they tended mainly to be men, as far as we know) of
exceptional ability; they were the leaders of the societies which existed in the
Valley before the Kingship. They were the initiators of the most remarkable of all
Egyptian innovations, which brought about the unification of the Valley and the
creation of the first nation state in the history of the world. As the beginning of
writing nears, in the latter part of the fourth millennium Be, obscure marks on
pottery or other media may conceal a name which is lost, for the means h'lVe not
been found to decipher them. Such markings may cunccn] the identity of some of
the men whose genius gave rise to the most august civilisation that the world has
ever seen or, judging by the experience of the last two thousand years in
particular, is ever likely to sec.
It is strange how the idea of Egypt has persisted in the conscionsness of the
people who lived around, or who drew their sense of the proper order of things
from, the lands bounded by the Mediterranean Sea. The sea was not itself
particularly important to the Egyptians, who broadly speaking disapproved of it
and mistrusted it; the river was quite a different matter, but they might be
prepared to admit (though it would not seem especially important to them) that
the sea was the one of the principal routes by which those people nnfortnnate
enough not to have been born in the Valley drew their understanding of some of
the eternal truths which it was the Egyptians' purpose to preserve.
They would have been deeply surprised to find that the ]udco-Hellenistic cast
of much of the scholarship of quite recent times was fixed on the idea that the
Egyptians were obsessed by death. This is an entire inversion of the truth; the
Egyptians, throughout most of their history, rejoiced in life, in all its aspects and,
if they were obsessed by anything, it was by its perpetuation. The records of the
lives of those who lived in the Valley which are noted here, will demonstrate the
truth of this contention abundantly.
But nonetheless, all the world knows that the vast prepouderance of evidence
of life in Ancient Egypt and of the achievements and apprehensions of its people,
is drawn from tomhs, the 'Houses of Millions of Years' in which this inventive
and optimistic people expected to spend their afterlife. Each Egyptian age had its
distinctive funerary monument. W'ith the first appearance of the Kingship - the
most important single development in the history of the Two Lands - massive
brick-built mastabas house the bodies of the Great Ones (the high officials and
nobles of the first rank) and their servants, whilst the kings are interred in
immense brick-built funerary palaces. Then, in the Old Kingdom, the mastabns
are stone-built and the kings - and some of the more favoured of their relatives­
are provided with pyramids, the archetypal Egyptian form. In the Middle
Kingdom a variety of funerary styles appear, notable for the refined elegance of
their architecture. In the New Kingdom immense palaces were huilt to
commemorate the lives of the greatest in the society, and valleys near Thebes
xu
were honeycombed in attempts, most of them quite futile, to protect the dead
lrom the predatory attentions of their descendants.
Who, then, arc the people presented in Who's Who in Ancient Egypt, who
created this most complex and richly endowed of all ancient civilisations?
( .crtainly there are ranks of kings, queens, princes, great ministers, high priests
;1I1d dignitaries holding offices of great status, power and antiquity who had no
doubt of their importance in sustaining the order of the universe; but there are
.ilso musicians, soldiers, sculptors, painters, lirnncrs of papyri, officials of modest
.ittainrncnr, singers, shipwrights, architects, builders, artisans, doctors (many of
I hem eng'lged in highly spccia lised areas of practice), farmers, children, a throng
of individuals who lived their lives as mcm bel'S of our species have always lived
their lives, since our strange choice of living in complex societies. These were the
people who provided the dynamic for Egypt's phenomenal history and who
together represented its unique corporate genius.
The numhcr of inhabiranrs of the Nile Valley during the period represented by
this volume has been computed at 5.25 billion (Srrouhul 1989; 1992: 256),
.issuming a generation at twenty years and averaging the population at 3 million
over the (approximately) 3,500 years involved. Estimates of the population at
given periods have been prepared, based on estimates of cultivable areas and
yields (Butzer 1976). These suggest that in Prcdynastic times the population
totalled 350,000. By the time of the 'Unification', c. 3150--3100 Be, it had risen
to 870,000. During the Pyramid Age, in the Old Kingdom, around 2500 Be, the
figure was perhaps 1.6 million. During the Middle Kingdom, c. 1800 Be, the
numbers wonld have increased to 2 million, whilst at the height of the New
Kingdom the population may have risen to 3 million, and in Ptolemaic times
from 2.4 million at its commencement to 5 million at its end (Srrouhal 1989;
1992: 134-5, quoting Butzer 1976).
Looking at the history of Ancient Egypt through the lives of even so small a
sample as it is possible to consider here, gives a particular and interesting cast to
that history itself. Certain factors become apparent which may not be
immediately discernable in more conventional historiography. Thus the role of
women in Egypt is clearly far more important than in any other early society.
Women were not confined to the home or the harem as in many later societies;
they occupied places in society which often went far beyond their domestic or
familial responsibilities, sometimes, even, assuming the kingship itself. One in
eight of the biographies in Who's Who in Ancient Egypt are of women; no other
society of comparable antiquity would be able to provide the same statisitic - or
anything like it.
The Egyptians were diligent and committed autobiographers, the first people
indeed to develop the genre. To be sure, many of the inscriptions and texts on
which this present work draws are merely formulaic, the pious repetition of the
deceased's fine qualirires: concern for the poor and needy, management of
resources in times of stress for the benefit of the community, protection of the
widow and orphan. But as often, the record of a man's (or woman's) life will
XIU
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
suddenly reveal an incident or achievement which lifts the subject out of the
merely conventional into the individually real and significant.
We know the Ancient Egyptians directly by the portraits of themselves which
they left behind them. They were the world's first portraitists, and the quality of
the finest of their work has never been surpassed. It has become one of the
conventions of Egyptology to insist that the statues in stone, wood and metal,
and the splendid repertory of paintings of the Egyptians in a ntiquity arc
invariably idealised, not to be regarded as naturalistic in any sense rhnr wonld be
understood today. But this is not so; even;] superficial f.uuiliarity wirh the
contents of the world's SiTat museums will deruonstrarc thnr when they wished to
do so, the Egyptians could produce work of a naturalism .md individual power
fully eompar;lble with the work of the greatest Rcn;nssance masters. Of course,
there arc m.uiy youthful, sleek, elegant and well exercised bodies abounding;
slender, perpetually youthful figures, bright with expectation ;lIld the promise of
fulfilment, in this life or the next. Indeed ir may be confidcntly asserted that there
arc probably more such from Egypt than ever graced any human society. But then
the sudden recognition of a living man or woman, carved to perfection in the
hardest stone or painted with verve and absolute confidence, with the
imperfections and the m;ljesty of humanity fully rcaliser], can bring the living
presence of the individual, though de;ld perhaps for four thousand years and
more, instantly into the present day,
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
Then, it may reasonably be asked, from whence did the Ancient Egyptians who
achieved these marvels, come to the Valley which was to he their home? The
question is necessary for it 'lppe;]rS that until around the seventh millennium BC
the Valley was void of permanent or settled inhabitants. It is a question which has
proved to he surprisingly difficult to answer. On the evidence of their language,
which belongs to the great family of languages embraced hy the term Afro­
Asiatic (in the past called Harniro-Sernitic), they had strong associations with
Last Africa, to the south of the Valley and with the people of the Saharan
steppelauds, as once they had been, to the west. The desert people, infused with
drifts of rranshumnnr migr;lnts from the Sinai pcninisula and moving down
through the Lcv.mriuc coast, courriburcd the Semitic linguistic elements, though
rhese are not as significant as the other strains, in early times. Each of these
groups repays a little further consideration.
The African component in the Egypti.ms' historic collective personality and in
the influencing of every department of their lives was probably the most
important ;llld the most enduring. It derived in large part from the presence from
very ear ly times of bands of hunters who followed the great herds of wild cattle
which moved northwards from Fast Africa, perhaps from the area now known as
The Mountains of the Moon, into the Nile Valley. The inheritance of the cattle
people was very great and appears, in various guises, throughout Egyptian
history. The king, when the principal personality in the evolving unitary state
came to be recognised by titles that we render as 'king', was hailed as 'Mighty
Bull' and his people were 'The Cattle of God'. The ~ods and goddesses
themselves and all manner of cult and religious customs hurk back to these
doubtless 'primitive' wandering hunters; primitive is, however, a term which
must be used with caution, certainly when dealing with matters Egyptian. One of
the most ancient of all the evidences of funerary cults comes from the very distant
past in the extreme south, from Tushka in Lower (Northern) Nubia, where
burials have been excavated dating from the twelfth millennium BC which were
surmouured by the skulls of the wild bull, the aurochs, 80S primigenius, which
roamed the Valley until it was exterminated by the kings of the New Kingdom,
len thousand years later.
Another people with a profound cattle tradition also contributed substantially
to the Egyptian gene pool. These were the hunters of the Sahara, one of the most
remarkable and most rnysterions of the peoples who appeared in the
Mediterranean region and in lands contiguous with it, after the end of the last
Ice Age. These people also followed the herds and later domesticated the cattle.
They left behind, on rocky overhangs and in shelters deep in what is now the
most inhospitable desert, a repertoire of brilliant paintings of astonishing quality,
which show forms and subjects which are similar to those which are later to be
!ound in Egyptian art. It may be that the later Egyptian reverence for the West
.ind the nostalgia which they seem to have harboured for a westward land of lost
content, is drawn from some sort of collective memory of the rich pasture and
gr;]zing lands of the Sahara before the extreme desiccation of the past six
I housand years began.
In later periods, certainly during the times of Egypt's greatness, the influence of
the Semitic-speaking congeries of tribes which lived on Egypt's eastern and
XLV
xv
Similarly, the consideration of the lives and careers of the individuals portrayed
here indicates how flexible was Egyptian society, and how it was possible for ,1
man of humble origins, by ability or simple good fortune, to rise to the highest
ranks of that society. Equally it is plain that, in general, privilege was not
permanently vested in a family which had once held office (even the crown), but
generation by geLler;Hion the status of snch families would be expected to decline,
unless that movement was .urcsrcd by the appearance of another especially
talented Or resourceful member.
Wlwt really makes the Egyptians of antiquity seem quite different from those
peoples who have come after them was, first, the quality and charurror of their
achievements, and second, the sense of transcendence which pervades their works
and often the record of their lives. There has never been any people quite like
them. It is their inherit;lnce which our modern world enjoys and equally regards
with astonishment. How did they move great blocks of stone, or cur and
assemble them with snch exquisite precision? How did they sculpt wonderful
likenesses of the kings in the most inrracml-l.. of stones? How did they organise
what must have heen armies of workers, craftsmen and supervisors ('Overseers of
All the Works of the King') to build the immense monuments which they strewed
across the Two Lands with such prodigality? One of the most ancient and most
powerful of all the entities which are collectively called 'the gods' was Ptah, the
Artificer, Lord of All. The architects and artists recorded here were truly spoken
of as 'sons of Ptah'.
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
northern boundaries was greater, just as the threat which they were seen to pose
to Egypt'S security represented an ever-present danger to the country's archetypal
- and long euduring - tranquility.
Throughout history, humans have generally demonstrated little enthusiasm for
moving from wherever they fonnd themselves comfortahly ensconced until a
climate change forced them to remove themselves or until other peoples, whose
own ancestral lands had heen affected hy adverse conditions, pressed on them,
forcing them to find somewhere else to go, often to the misfortune of yet another
people. From a hour eight thousand years ago the climate began to change
dramatically throughout the Middle East, forcing many of the peoples of the
region to find themselves new homelands, In the case of Egypt - as it was to
become - the Valley W,lS virtually empty of human inhabitants; it was a paradise
for the animals who lived on its richly endowed river hanks unthreatcned until
humankind entered what might very well he regarded as the prototypical Eden.
From the west, the people of the Sahara drifted towards the east; they probably
already knew of the Valley's idyllic character from following the herds. Those
who similarly drifted up from the south, from deeper Africa, undoubtedly did;
when and how the two groups met and began to coalesce, we do not know. Most
of the very early evidence of human habitation on the Nile hanks has been lost
after millennia of agricultural exploitation of the rich alluvial deposits on which
the people always based their livelihood, and hy the rising of the Nile's levels
which laid down the alluvium. What is certain, however, is that the earliest
populations of the Valley were directly ancestral to those who crea ted the
civilisation of Egypt, when its first evidences appear, approximately 7,500
years ago.
Egypt's was overwhelmingly an agricultural economy, powered hy the river
which was country's life-blood, her people, even if they were part of the central
administration, attending the King, the High Priests or the great magnates,
always identified with the land and the life with which the river and the gods had
so abundantly endowed it. The decoration of their tombs, from the earliest to the
latest times, celebrated the Egyptian countryside and the animals with which they
shared it. The fact that the people of Egypt were so rooted in the land and that
the prosperity of Egypt was so bound up with a riverine and agrarian economy, is
fundamental to an understanding of Egyptian society and of the particular
directions in which it developed.
By historiographical convention Egyptian history is divided into a sequence of
chronologically based blocks: the two broadest divisions are between the
Predynastic and the Dynastic periods, the one relating to pre-literate times, beforc
the introduction of the kingship, and the other, after approximately 3150 BC,
when the kingship becomes the characteristic and dominant form of Egyptian
political organisation. Within these two broad divisions are a number of more
sharply focused periods, which will be explained here in their turn.
The first Predynastic culture to he identified in Egypt is that which was
originally recognised at EI-Badari (see BADARIAN), a site in Upper Egypt. The
Badarians were agriculturalists and domesticated goats and sheep. They
XVI
maintained some sort of contncr WIth the Red Sea, for shells from there ha ve been
lound in their graves. They were exceptionally skilled potters, producing a fine
ware, burnished a deep red with black tops, effected by inverting the vessel in the
tire; a similar ware was produced in Nubia until quite recent times. Badarian
pottery is most remarkable for the exceptional thinness of its fabric and its
equally exceptional hardness. Such results could only be produced consistently by
very skilful potters, able to control the firing of high temperatures very precisely,
who were working in a long and secure tradition.
The Badarians hnr icd their dead in the desert, in shallow graves, the excavated
material forming a mound over the burial. This W:1S to remain a constant feature
of the Egyptian way of burying the dead, though, as we shall see, it was
drarnaricaly transformed, especially in high-stutus burials in the early dynasties,
two thousand years and more after Badari'lll times.
The Badarian culture first appears 'Hound 5500 Be; it was followed by the first
to be associated archacologically with the important Prcdynasric site at NAQALlA,
which is situated in the stretch of the river which was always to have a special
unportance to the development of Egypt, especially in relation to the kingship;
this phase of the Egyptia]] Predynasric, Co 4000--3500 Be, is also referred to as the
Amrarian, after the site of El-Amra.
It is generally accepted that there was a connection between Naqada I and the
preceding Badarians. The Nnq.idans, however, appear to have evolved a more
sophisticated material culture; their pottery is quite different and is notable for
the elaborate engraved scenes, infilled with white, which decorated the surfaces
of the vessels. This development represents the first appearance of one of the
glories of Egyptian art, draughtsmanship; it is tempting to suggest a connection
with the artists of the Sahara, who were also superb draughtsmen, of a somewhat
earlier time, but such is speculation.
The third Upper Egyptian Predynastic culture, Naqada II (also known as the
'Gerzean', c. 3S00-3100 BC), reveals that very rapid advances were being made
in all aspects of Egyptian life, material culture, art and technology. Once again,
pottery provides many of the clues to the changes which were taking place.
Naqada II pottery is quite different, both from Naqada I and from the Badarian.
lt is generally a buff ware richly decorated with scenes depicting animals, the
river, landscapes, and a curious device of three, sometimes more, little triangular
hills, an anticipation of what was to become the most characteristic of all
Egyptian forms.
The people of Naqada II seem to have maintained some form of contact, or
perhaps shared a common origin with, the people of south-western Asia, far
away at the head of the Arabian Gulf. It is very remarkable that at this time Egypt
and the region of western Iran which was later to be known as Elam share a
significant number of themes in art and design motifs which are too numerous
merely to he the result of chance. Elarn, though it was culturally distinct with its
own language, was part of the wider Uruk culture, which had its origins in
southern Mesopotamia and which was approximately contemporary with the
Naqada II horizon in Upper Egypt. It seems certain that the influence of a people,
t
xvii
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
either from western Asia or who were themselves deeply influenced by its culture,
made a very particular series of contributions to the development of the historic
Egyptian personality in late Predynastic times. How this was effected is still
enigmatic. One slight hint may be provided by the fact that lapis lazuli was much
prizcd by the Egyptians, in the period imrncdiarcly bdore that which is identified
as the Unification; lapis in antiquity came only from one principal source,
Badakshan in northern Pak isrnn. The distances which the merchants traded the
stone from its source to its eventual market in the Nile V'111ey were immense, but
the route ran through south-western Iran and it m'1y he that contact was
established in this way.
But this surely does not explain the whole of the phenomenon, particularly the
remarkahlc fact that the badge in which the early kings displayed their most
sacred n'1I11e, the serekh, signifying their appearance as the incarnate 1I0RtlS, was
based on an architectural motif which originateu in south-western Asia, probably
in Elam, in the second half of the fourth millennium. The same arclritccrurul
motif, of walls built with repeated recessed panelling, was also to he adopted as
the invariable decoration of the great mastaba tomhs (built in mud-brick, a very
un-Egyptiau substance, as it turned out) in which the greur magnates were buried
and which appear, quire dramatically, at the beginning of the First Dynasty. Some
authorities have seen the prototype of the rnasta bil tomh in the temples built in
the southern Mesopotamian cities, at sites such as Uruk , Ur and Eridu from
about 3500 Be. Recently, evidence of wh.it appears to have been au actual
western Asiatic presence in Egypt in "He Prcdynastic times has come from the
Delta, in the north of the country. There, what is unmistakeablv a temple
building of the type which originated in Uruk in sonthern Mesopotamia around
the middle of the fourth millennium, has heen found, with examples of the highly
individual decorated cones which were used to hrighten the surfaces of the
otherwise rather barren mud-brick architecture of the Sumerians. This suggests
something like a settled community in northern Egypt at this very early time
which had strong Mesopotamian connections - to put it no higher. It is a most
intriguing mystery - for which no doubt there is '1 perfectly rational explanation
which, for the time, has escaped us.
A glance at the map of Ancient Egypt will show that these three important
type-sites, el-Badari, el-Amra '1I1d Gerza, as well as Naqada itself, are all
clustered in the southern reaches of the Nile Valley. The recognition of this
apparent coincidence of location is of crucial importance in understanding one of
the essential characteristics of the civilisation which rose and flourished so
abundantly in the Valley: Egypt's heartland always lay in the south. Whenever, in
later times, the integrity of Egypt was threatened or her institutions became
wearied and in decline, it was to the south, to Upper Egypt, that she returned for
revivification and renewal.
Throughout the country's history a cardinal principle about the nature of
Egypt, promoted from the earliest times of the kingship, was that there were two
kingdoms, south and north. The king, when he came to be recognised as the
supreme, even universal sovereign, was a dual king, l.ord of the Two Lands, as
XVII]
Lgypt was always described. However, though there is ample evidence of a
system of local government in southern Egypt, probably a form of chieftaincy
trom which the kingship ultimately derived, there is no comparable evidence for
the north. It must be said, however, thar the state of preservation of the northern
(Delta) sites IS nowhere as good as that which characterises sites in Upper Egypt;
inevitably, the depredation of northern sites has influenced markedly and perhaps
incorrectly, the analysis of their historical significance.
The Valley was notionally divided somewhat to the south of the modern
capital, Cairo, close to the city which the Greeks ca llcd Memphis. To the north
lay the Delta, where the Nile divided into branches, to flow into the
Mediterranean. This was marshy country, later fonnd to be ideal for the raising
of cattle. It, too, h,1u l'rcdynnstic cultures, identified by sites at Ma 'udi, Merimde
and £1-Om'11". There is evidence that the Delta Predynastic cultures actually
predate those in the south; they obviously received sorue of their influences from
still further north, from Palestine a nd the Levant (possibly from the north­
western outreaches of Mesopotamian culture too) but they never exercised the
same weight of influence themselves on the development of the historic Egyptian
personality.
At some time during the thirty-second century before the present era, all the
ideas and innovations which had been fomenting in the south began to coalesce.
Fhrcc powerful 'sr.rtelers' emerged, each basing its authority on the control of the
trade routes which ran up and down the river and into the eastern desert. The
most northerly was at This, close to the sacred city of Abydos. To the south and
east was Naqada, an ancient settlement, whilst the most southerly was
Hierak onplolis, which controlled the rontes to Nubia and the source of gold.
It appears that Naqada was the first to fade, leaving This and Hierankonpolis
to contend for supremacy. Iconographic evidence survives which suggest that
there was conflict in the Valley, with various 'chieftaincies' in confrontation. In
the event the princes of This emerged victorious, claiming sovereignty over the
whole of the Valley. Hierakonpolis was for long after regarded as ,1 most sacred
place in the cult of the kingship. Egypt up to this time had been a fairly typical
example of ,1 well developed, pottery-making but otherwise still basically
neolithic society, probably organised into chiefraincics along the river banks. The
local chiefs, some of whom probably exercised considerable personal power,
were perhaps already identified as divine or semi-divine beings. In the very last
decades of the Predynastic period shadowy figures can be discerned, whose
names are generally unknown or uncertain, who seem already to possess some of
the status and even the rega lia which came to be associated with the kingship in
historic times. One of the latest was identified by the badge of the SCORPION,
which may also have been his name. Others are less certain still, IRYHOR and KA
for example; even theexistence of the first of these has been questioned, but
this view has not gone unchallenged.
According to the officially promoted legend, this exceptional young man who
achieved this transformation of Egypt's political control was the prince of This,
XIX
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
MENES (a term which in fact may mean something like 'The Unifier') or NAR-MER,
a name which is represented by early hieroglyphic signs of catfish and chisel, who
was always credited as the first king of the the unified Two Lands. In fact, Nar­
Mer was probably the last of the Predynastic kings and it is to his successor,
probably his son, that the credit really belongs for launching the process which
ultimately was to result in the unification of the Valley. His name was AHA, 'The
Fighter'. He was evidently still young when he succeeded, for he is said to have
reigned for sixty-four years and to have died hunting hippopotamus.
It is at this point, around 3150 Be, that Egyptian history really begins. From
this time onwards, until the depredations of Rome 'mel the malice of the newly
emerging Christian authorities fin'llly destroyed the remnants of Egyptian
civilisation in the first millennium of the present era, king followed king In a long,
sometimes glorious, sometimes confused succession. The first two dynasties of
Egyptian kings represent the Archaic Period, which lasted from c. 3150 Be to
L". 2750 Be. It was a period absolutely fundamental to Egyrt's subsequent three
millennia of history and to its immeasurable contribution to the history of the
world. In the complex process of the emergence of the historic Egyptian persona,
the king is revealed as the Great Individual, the very reason for the existence of
the Egyptian state and, in effect, its soul.
There is something deeply mysterious about the kings of the earliest dynasties,
particularly the First. The very names of the kings arc strange, though they they
are certainly Egyptian, but Aha, DJFH, DJET, DEN and the rest have a harsh,
barbaric quality about them, unlike the generally euphonious, theophoric
formulations of the names and titles of their successors over the many ccnruries
in which kings ruled Egypt. But, barbarous or not, these men laid down the
essential character of the country which was to prevail throughout the entire
history of Egypt. In doing so, they gave names to the fundamental structnre of
what as to become an immensely complex society, which provided the matrix
from which all nation states in the West have developed ever since.
The First Dynasty was a time of great advances in the organisation of the
society. In every department, in government, state ceremonies and rituals, in
architecture, art and technology, immense developments occurred which were to
sustain Egypt'S growth far into the future. The nearly three hundred years during
which the First Dynasty survived were crucial to all of the Nile Valley's
subsequent history. The driving impulse of the kings seems to have been the
imposition of a coherent system of rule throughout the length of the Valley;
though their essential motivation came from Upper Egypt, the intention was to
unify the land from the first cataract to the sea, far to the north. This was always
to be regarded as the true extent of the land of Egypt, and for many centuries (if
indeed they ever changed) the Egyptians had but little interest in foreign
countries, other than to ensure that they did not threaten the security of the
Valley.
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
by fire, apparently set deliberately. This was an appalling fate for an Egyptian,
whose immortality also depended on the survival of his mortal remains. Could it
have been something to do with the very un-Egyprian practice of the sacrifice of
retainers which prevailed in First Dynasty royal hurials and in those of the high
officers of state?
The First Dynasty is also the occasion for the appearance of one of the
determining characteristics of the Egyptian state: an extensive and complex
bureaucracy. At its head were the kiug's immediate coadjurors, the hearers of
already ancient offices which were denoted by richly inventive titles. The holders
of these titles were the elite of Ancient Egypt, the Seal-Bearers, a term which
implied nobility. The Second Dynasty, though it survived almost as long as the
First, is much less well-documented; this may he because the programme of
unification which the kings tried to impose did not achieve unquestioned
acceptance by the smaller local loyalties which they sought to replace. It was only
in the reign of the last king of rhe Second Dynasty that something like the
unification of the entire Valley was achieved.
This was the work of one of the most rcmarka ble of Egypt'S kings, Khasckhcm,
who later changed his name to KHASEKHEMWY. His memory, too, endured
throughout the centuries; he was said to he of gigantic stature, and the shadow
which he cast on Egypt was commensurately great.
It appears however, that Khasekhemwy had no surviving son. His wife (who
may also have been his daughtcr ) NEMAATHAI' was his heiress, and she brought
with her the succession to the throne. This was an experience which was
frequently to he repeated in Egyptian history; indeed, the succession was always
considered to be through the female line, at least in the earlier centuries, during
the Old Kingdom. The eldest daughter of the king, or his principal queen was the
incarnation of the goddess Isis (just as he was the reincarnation of the god Horus)
and Isis' name was represented by the hieroglyph of the throne. By contact with
the throne at his coronation the king became a living god.
Nemaathap was venerated as the ancestress of the Third Dynasty. She had two
sons who became kings: first, SANAKHTE or Nebka and then the great DJOSER
NETJERYKIIET.
The Egyptians' own view of the founding dynasty was singularly ambivalent.
They hononred the early kings greatly and long maintained cults in their honour,
in some cases for the length of Egypt's history, yet all their tombs were destroyed
Netjerykhet was the first king in Egypt to be commemorated by a pyramid
tomb, the stupendous Step Pyramid complex raised to his glory and perpetuity in
Saqqara, by the genius of his minister and architect, IMHOTEP. The enterprise of
building this monument of nearly one million tons of finely dressed stone was
unparalleled anywhere in the world and the pyramid form, adapted by later
generations of kings, was to give Egypt its most enduring symbol. It is not
difficult to apprehend why Imhotep came to be acknowledged as the prototype of
the supreme, creative Egyptian genius: truly, the son of Ptah,
The Third Dynasty was another period of exponential advance, not only in
technique and the adaptation of materials, but also in more philosophical
concerns, of which the principal was the divinity and status of the king. This was
undoubtedly inspired by Netjcrykhct, who stands for all time as the archetype of
xx
xxi
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
the god-king. Heliopolis was an important centre for the royal cult and the
ohscrvarinn and worship of the stars seems to have been particularly significant.
A princess was again the conduit through whom the kingship passed to the
next family to possess it. HETEPIIFRES I, the daughter of King I1l1Nl, the last king
of the Third Dynasty, married SNEFEHU and inaugurated rhc Fourth Dynasty,
which forever will he identified as the Pyramid Age. Sncfcru was another
remarkable creative genius, establishing monuments on an immense scale and of
a diversity of character which is most extraordinary. His achievements actually
surpass those of his more celebrated son, KliNUM-KIILlFU, to whom is attributed
the building of the Great Pyramid at C;iz:I. Sncfcru built three, possibly even four
pyramids, and to do so excavated, cut and laid nine millicm ions of stone, all in
his own lifetime. Khnum-Khufu and his successors built the pyramids which
stand on the Giza plateau, and in doing so created between them the most
renowned group of monumcnrs anywhere in the world, of any age. But the
achievement of Sneferu, though less celebrated, outshines them by far.
The later history of the Fourth Dyn.isr y, however, was marred by dissension in
the royal family. As it reached its end, once again the kingship passed through the
female line to the next family to hold it. The Fifth Dynasty of Egyptian kings
presided over a period of une xau.plcd prosperity for Egypt, a supremely tranquil
time of peace and the enjoyment of the life which the gods had given to those
who were fortunate enough to live in the Valley. Now it could be truly said tliar
all W'lS for the best in the best of all possible worlds with, perhaps for the first
and only time anywhere on earth, the people (or at least the more fortunate of
them) able to live their lives in absolute harmony with the world around them.
The Fifth Dynasty's principal glory, however, must he the revelation of the
PYRAMID TEXTS, the most ancient corpus of ritual texts in the world, which
decorate the interior walls of the pyramid of the last king of the Dynasty, UNAS,
and which appear throughout the subsequent Sixth Dynasty.
The Egyptian kingdom, however, like m:lny of the political institutions which
were to follow it, was the victim of its own success. The Sixth Dynasty,
continuing the placid way of its predecessors, hegan ro manifest signs of fracture
and stress which were cventuullv to bring down the edifice which had been built
up over the previous thousand years.
The problem was twofold: first, the increasing power of the temple institutions
which were growing ever richer and more avaricious; and second, the influence
of the great magnates whom the kings, from the late Fourth Dynasty onwards,
had felt it necessary to endow with much of their own wealth, to ensure their
loyalty. In many cases this had had the effect of creating competing dynasties in
the country who saw themselves effectively as independent princes and who
maintained a state to match. In the case of the Sixth Dynasty the problem was
compounded by the hundred years-long life of one of its latest kings, I'EPY II,
when the administration atrophied and the power of the magnates grew
unchecked.
i
j
~
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
There now followed a period of political uncertainty (called by Egyptologists
the First Intermediate Period), of which the loss of the central, royal authority
was the most immediate manifestation. A succession of generally weakened
monarchs, often with more than one reigning simultaneously in various parts of
I he country, tried to sustain some sort of authority; a few succeeded in doing so
.md, for the majority of the people, life probably continued much as it had always
.lone. It was by no means an entirely barren time in the life of Egypt; trade
Iiourished and litcrarurc became one of the art forms which was to add
,ignificantly to Egypt's cultural inheritance, particularly under the Ninth and
'!l'nth Dynasties which came from l Icr.iclcopolis. Hut the fabric of Egypt came
.ipart, with rulers in the north maiutaining some sort of tenuous control whilst
Infiltrators from beyond Egypt'S desert frontiers began to pcnctr.rre the Valley.
Meanwhile, in the south, where Egypt's heart beat still steadily, 'I family of
princes was preparing itself ouce more to attempt to reunify the Valley.
This, after long years of struggle, they succeeded in doiug. But Egypt had
changed; the king now was a god by custom as it were, no longer the incarua tr
ruler of the universe. The kings of the Eleventh Dyn'lsty, the first of the period
which Egyptologists call the Middle Kingdom, were rather austere, certainly
dedicated men, of whom Nl'.I\IIEPl'.TRE-MONTLIllOTEI' II was the most out­
standing, as he was the longest reigning. The king now became the Great
Executive, himself directing the affairs of the country which, in the latter part of
the Old Kingdom, had become the responsibility of an increasingly diverse and
Influential bureaucracy. In the Twelfth Dynasty, founded by a man who had been
Vizier to the last of the rulers of the Eleventh Dynasty, the power of the provincial
nobles was finally broken, not for centuries to threaten the royal authority again.
The Twelfth Dynasty was one of the high points of the historic Egyptian
experience. Its kings were amongst the longest reigning of all of Egypt's
sovereigns; they extended Egypt'S influence f.rr beyond its historic, god-given
trontiers, a process which was to pay a dangerous dividend in centuries far into
the future. They also left behind them one of the longest enduring myths
associated with once-living men, the myth of the more-than-human king who
.'ontrols the fates and who exercises powers which are more than mortal. This
was no new dimension for the god-kings of Egypt, but for the world which was
10 come after them there were two kings in particular whose lives and legend
provided much of the source of the later myths: the wonder-working king who
directs not only the destinies of his people but is possessed of still greater powers.
lhe kings who bore the name 'SENWOSRE'I' (which the Greeks rendered as
'Scsostris") are the archetypes of this formidable invention; their fame endured
throughout Egypt's history into Greek times and on into the present day. From
their lives and the myths which accreted around them descend Sarastro in Die
/.auberf1(jte and, with a change of gender, Mme Scsostris in The Waste Land.
The Twelfth Dynasty was another of the times when the arts in Egypt
flourished exceedingly. Sculpture takes on a new life and architecture, though not
.1S monumental as during the Old Kingdom, has a grace and elegance which is
unsurpassed.
But the longevity which characterised the reigns of the kings of this dynasty
.uui the peace and security which they brought to the Two Lands led in time to
xxn
XX III
~',
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
something like complacency. This in turn introduced what was to be a frequently
recurring problem, the succession devolving either on elderly heirs or on distant
relatives who, in the nature of things, could provide little continuity with their
predecessors.
The alien infiltrations which had occurred during the years after the end of the
Old Kingdom now began to threaten the stability of the entire Valley, The
Thirteenth Dynasty was amongst the most disrupted of all Egypt's lines of kings;
few of the rulers survived long enough to leave substantial evidences of their
reigns behind them. Invaders now appeared in the north of the country and
established an indepeudent kingship, outwardly Egyptian in many of its forms
but actually alien to all that the Egyptians held sacred.
At least, this was the official line pursued by royal propagandists when the
native-born Egyptian kingship was restored. In fact the 'Hyksos' kings, so-called
from a corruption of the term 'rulers of foreign lands' (in Egyptian, lleluuo­
khasut) attempted to follow Egyptian customs carefully and to respect Egyptian
preconceptions and attitudes. This did not prevent them froru being execrated
throughout the centuries remaining, when Egypt was once more a great and
powerful na rion.
Again, salvation came from the south. Thebes, hitherto a relatively
unimportant provincia I centre other than during the Eleventh Dynasty, was
now fated to become for centuries the greatest city in the world. This came about
with the rise of a family of Theban princes, who represented the Seventeenth
Dynasty of kings and who began the task of driving the Hyksos invaders back
into their northern reaches, ultimately expelling them from the land of Egypt. A
new line was proclaimed, descended directly from the Seventeenth Dynasty, to
form the Eighteenth, perhaps the most sumptuous and celebrated of all Egypt's
later rulers.
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
Egypt now set out on a completely new course in its history; for the first time it
became an Empire, the greatest and most powerful nation in the world, asserting
itself above all of its neighbours, the thrones of its kings elevated above all the
thrones of the world. This era, a paradoxical one for a land which had always
valued its containment from the rest of humankind, was heralded by the
appearance of a phenomenon which was to become one of the marks of the
dynasty: a succession of powerful queens who, sometimes ruling on their own
account, left an indelible impression on the character of the times over which
they presided. Often, by reason of the relatively early demise of some of the
kings, their queens acted as regents, ruling during the minority of a son;
sometimes they shared the sovereignty with the king, giving a particular air of
grace to the otherwise often monumental quality of Egyptian architecture, for
example, or to the lesser and applied arts.
Three great queens stand at the threshold of the Eighteenth Dynasty. They
were followed by others who were as influential; it has already been observed
that women always played an important part in the public as in the domestic life
of Ancient Egypt. Women were not secluded in the later fashion of Near Eastern
societies, but appeared with their menfolk on terms of equality. Some occupied
!~reat offices in the temple administrations; others were queens ruling in their
own right. In the New Kingdom, as this period is described, women were
-specially significant in the nation's life and it is by no mere chance that the
queens of the Theban family now coming to power are particularly dominant.
This was a time of entirely unprecedented wealth and power for Egy pt. It
became the greatest power in the Near East iu matcrial and military terms, and its
kings became the exemplars of the supreme autocrat, ruling by divine authority.
In fact the administration of Egypt continued in place, with the ranks of civil
servants and those employed by the huge temples which rose up majestically
beside the Nile growing ever more numerous, powerful and rapacious.
The architecture of the New Kingdom period is enlightening, in that it
demonstrates in stone much of the principles which governed the Egyptian
world-view. The kings of Egypt had always manifested a tendency towards the
colossal; the pyramids a re not the expression of a society uncertain of its place in
t he world. But in the New Kingdom size and massiviry seem to have been
pursued la rgely for their own sake; it was as though Egypt sensed the need to
.isserr itself in a world which W;lS changing around it, though the phenomenal
'eye' which Egyptian artists of all disciplines always possessed ensured that even
the largest buildings displayed the sense of proportion and order which is the true
mark of the Egyptian aesthetic genius.
For this was the reality which Egypt now encountered: no longer was she sui
generis, unique and unchallenged. Other lands and peoples, perhaps inspired by
her example, now claimed a status to which before only Egypt had presumed.
Partly this was the result of the invasion by the Semiric-speaking foreigners,
partly the result of greater contact between peoples around the Mediterranean;
hut life in the Valley would never be quite the same again.
Egypt's great days were far from over, however. The tremendous flood of riches
which pou red into the country, by way of conquest, tribute and trade, raised the
splendour of the royal state to a condition never before seen. Even quite modest
people, the lesser servants of the court and temples and those who served them,
could now prepare for eternity on a scale which their ancestors could not have
envisaged, as though the heirs of a Tudor merchant could plan for their future
security by a carefully devised and generously endowed retirement plan. The
l.gyptians retirement plan, however, was, as near as it might be, forever.
The kings of the New Kingdom extended Egypt's influence far beyond the
Valley and the traditional frontiers of Egypt. The kings (and the occasional
queen) were skilled diplomatists and, when they had to be, implacable warriors.
Ilut it is the arts of peace, as at all times in Egypt, which really prevail throughout
1he New Kingdom.
Though men like THUTMOSE III, who was as great a king as ever sat on Egypt'S
thrones, are to be found in the annals of the Theban family, their celebrity pales
beside that of two far lesser members of the dynasty. The first of these equivocal
ligures is AMENHOTEP IV-AKHENATEN, the son of the magnificent AMENHOTEP III.
Akhenaten was responsible for the admittedly brief period in which the old gods
of Egypt were obscured and a newcomer, the Aten, raised supreme above Egypt's
xxiv
xxv
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
ancient, and by this time complicated pantheon. Akhenaten's religious reforms :.[
did not really change the traditional role of the temples in Egyptian society"
(except ultimately perhaps to strengthen them and so contribute to the decline of
the kingship and of Egypt's ancient paramountcy) but he did introduce a sea- 'I
change in the arts of Egypt, especially the relatively minor 'HtS.
But the supreme irony of this period late in the lifetime ot the Eighteenth
Dynasty was the succession to the throne of a nine-year-old hoy, whose very
existence was long doubted hut who was to become the most renowned of ;111
Egypt's kings. The discovery of TUTANKlIAMUN'S virtually intact tomb in the
V;llIey of the Kings was one of the most drnmaric events, other than the two
World Wars, of the twentieth century. From the little tomb in which his
nnunmificd body lay (and, much battered, still lies) came the recognition of what
it had meant to he a king of Egypt, even a very small one, and in a period of
marked decline.
The Eighteenth Dynasty came to ;1 relatively tranquil end with the assumption
of the kingship hy ;1 professional soldier, HOI(EMltltl, who had served the
previous kings in high office. He imposed order OJ] a society which, ;1 fter the rule
of the rather epicene members of the dynasty in its decline, had become seriously
depleted. He had no direct heir, however, and passed the thrones to another
soldier, who founded the Nineteenth Dynasty; he was to adopt 'I(AMESSES' as his
throne-name and in doing so inaugurated a line of kings who, if they did not ;111
share his bloodline, adopted his nume. Of these the most tamous W;lS his
grandson, !(AMISSES II, the son of the distinguished SETI I whose accomplish­
ments and perceptions seem to ha ve been exceptional even for an Egyptian king.
By the standards of the Egyptian kingship in the previous centuries of its
existence, the Nineteenth Dynasty was paruenu; it docs not a ppear to h.iv« had
any royal connections in its lineage, though the family W<lS important, probably
noble, from the north-west of the country. Rarnesses II, however, rhough he
manifested ,1 concern for the perpetuation of his own image on ;1 scale and
freqnency bordering on the manic, and insisted on his divinity beyond the
prevailing conventions of the kingship, was an effective administrator who took
to the business of ruling as to the mnnncr born - as indeed he was. But the
monuments with which he so prodigally covered the Valley are impressive
principally because of their seale; though some lack that singular combination of
qualities which Egyptian architecture at its best presents - monumcntalir y
combined with grace, often with elegance - much of the sculpture of Ramcsscs'
time preserves the finest qualities of the work of Egypt'S sculptors at its height.
Rnmesses lived long, dying in the sixty-seventh year of his reign. The problem
of a long-living king was a familiar one lJl Egypt, hut no lasting solution had been
found to it. Ramesses was succeeded by his thirteenth son, MERENPTAH, already
an elderly man; he reigned only for nine years, to be followed by a succession of
short-lived rulers, in some cases with a very dubious entitlement to the kingship.
The Twentieth Dynasty, which now succeeded to the kingship, was at pains to
emphasise irs connections with irs immediate predecessors with whom, indeed, it
may have had some familial relationship. It demonstrated this concern by
t
!
XXVI
.ulopting the throne-name 'Ramesses' for nine of its members who occupied the
kingship, as it turned out, increasingly uneasily.
The first to assume the name, RAMESSES ttl, is often regarded as the last great
n.uive-born king of Egypt. His reign W,lS fraught with difficulties, not the least of
which was an invasion in the north by ;1 confederation of Egypt's enemies, known
«ollectively as 'the Sea-Peoples'. Rnmcsses defeated them and reigned for thirty
vcars. He died, it is thoughr, as the consequence of an assassination attempt.
His successors seldom even approached his authority over what had become an
increasingly fractious kingdom. The power of the temples increased ominously,
10 the degree that their wealth and the extent of the country rh.ir they ruled
«hallengcd, if it did not actually exceed, that of the king.
At the death of the last Ramesscs, the eleventh in the line, Egypt sundered,
entering a long period when the two principal regions of the country were
-cparatcd, somerimes splitting into even smaller divisions. In the south, the power
"I' the High Priests of Thebes encouraged them to adopt royal prerogatives. In the
north, rhe Twenty-First Dynasty ruled a diminishing area; this period, extending
over much of the next three hundred years, represents what Egyptologists define
:IS the 'Third lnrcrrncdiare Period.
This is amongst the most confused and obscure phases in the history of Egypt;
il carne to an end with ;1 succession of small states being established in the north
"f the conntry, often under the control of princes from Libya, a people for whom
rhe Egyptians had little affection or respect. Sometimes they managed to extend
their influence to parts of the south, including the area of the ancient capital,
Memphis; frequently they really controlled only a small part of the Delta.
These petty rulers were finally swept away hy an invasion from rhe far south,
lrorn Nubia, whence carne a family of African kings who set our, with piety,
determination and considerable military and administrative skills, to restore the
rule of the gods in Egypr which, in their view, had been disgracefully abandoned.
The most powerful of these kings from Kush was P1ANKHY, who effectively
conquered the whole country; he was recognised as undisputed King of Upper
.md Lower Egypr.
The Kushitcs ruled for a little under a century, forming the Twenty-Fifth
Dynasty. They were succeeded by a native Egyptian dynasty which originated in
rhe ancient: northern city of Sais.
The Saitic kings, during the hundred and fifty years that rheir dynasty survived,
did much to recall the days of Egypt's splendour, through a deliberate harking
back to the forms of the Old Kingdom in the arts, especially in sculpture and
.nchirccrurc. The cities which they built were magnificent, and Egypt entered its
last period of great prosperity under their rule, at least until the time of the Greek
Ptolemaic dynasty, nearly four hundred years later. The country was increasingly
opened to foreign traders, of whom the Greeks and the Jews were probably the
most significant. These incursions, especially those of the Greeks, were to have
important lasting effects.
The Saites fell; Egypt underwent another invasion, this time from the newly
emergent Persian Empire, which had become the dominant power in the Near
xxvn
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
Encountering the Ancient Egyptians
East. The Persians were not entirely confident in their rule of Egypt, however,
despite the support of sections of the indigenous population. After the restoration
of native Egyptian rule, culminating in the reign of the last true Egyptian king,
NECTANEBO 11, the Persians returned briefly, to he expelled finally by ALEXANDER
THE GREAT in 332 BC.
Alexander was hailed by the Egyptians as 'Saviour'. Though he only spent
about six months in the country, after his coronation in Memphis, his presence
was to he felt for hundreds of yea rs to come, even, it might be said, until the
present day. His creation of the city of Alexandria, on the country's Mediterranean
coast, was a decision which was to have the most profound influence on the
subsequent history of the world. From Alexandria there flowed a tide of
intellectual and scicnrific innovation and speculation which marked the end of the
ancient world and inaugurated - for better or worse - its modern successor.
After Alexander's death in 323 BC, jrI'OLEMY, one of his companions und a
most competaut general, seized control of Egypt, in the turmoil of the disputed
succession to Alexander's empire. He proclaimed himself king in 305 HC and thus
inaugurated the last of the dynasties, albeit a foreign one, to reign over Fgypt.
Ptolemy and his son, PTOLEMY II, were admirable rulers, imposing a generally
firm but equitable control over the country. Gradually, however, the quality of
the Ptolemaic kings deteriorated catastrophically, some of the generations
producing monsters of cruelty and lust who outdid the most decadent Roman
Emperors in imaginative infamy. The dynasty came to its end with CLEOPATRA
VII, whose defeat and melodramatic death opened the way to the Roman
conquest of Egypt. Henceforth the most ancient and august of kingdoms became
a province of the Roman Empire, administered as the private domain of the
emperors. But they belong more to the history of Europe than to that of
immemorial Egypt.
Rome however, like Greece before it, opened Egypt to the new world which
was emerging in Europe and the Levant. The myth of Egypt grew over the
centuries, giving life to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Although Egypt's
greatness was now long past, the myth accreted and today still exerts its almost
uncanny power, standing for a time, however fancifully, when man was closer to
the gods and to the fulfilment of a richer human destiny.
Egypt has the quality, unique amongst all the great civilisations of antiquity,
that demands explanation, not merely description and analysis. Its origins remain
largely obscure, despite two centuries of careful exploration and sometimes less
careful speculation. It is as though on one day towards the end of the fourth
millennium BC, the old neolithic societies were still in place along the length of
the Nile's banks, whilst on the next day the complexities and splendours of the
civilisation which was to excite the wonder of the world for thousands of years,
began to unroll. There is little evidence of experiment or change in the course of
the Valley's history, even in its earliest years, any more than there is evidence of
experiment or failure in the production of the works of art which flowed from the
country's artists and craftsmen.
xxviii
The leading figures of this time, too, stand absolutely assured, their titles,
11I"des of dress, the structure of the administration which they led and the works
which they achieved coming into being seelningly fully realised; there is no real
lormativc stage in the development of Egyptian culture, no primitive beginnings
lrom which the society can be seen to grow. It is '1 genlllne mystery, and whilst
dine mnst he some rational explanation, allowing the conscientious humanist to
discard the wilder theories of extraterrestrial intervention and the like in the
',<Tding of Egypt, the mystery remains.
Ihe inhabitants ofthe Nile Valley five thousand years .igo fulfilled an exalted and
rxtraordinary destiny. It W:IS they who, seemingly instincrunlly, recognised,
ulcntified and named the great archetypes which became the marks of
'oophisticated, complex societies, .md which determined the lives of those living
III such societies for many hundred ycnrs. and indeed still influence the world of the
present day, The list of those archetypes which we owe to Egypt is formidable: the
u.ition state, the kingship, the Divine King, Order and Truth, the Creative Force,
ruonumenral stone buildings, the pyramid, the Hidden God, the power of the stars.
1\11 of these were first defined in Egypt, and once having been named and
.icknowlcdgcd they assumed their own independent existence, to be similarly
.uknowledged when, in time, they appeared in other, later cultures. This is the true
mystery of Egypt and the reason why the culture which arose so swiftly and
perfectly on the Nile's banks still excites the minds of so many people living today, in
l.mds far distant fro III the Valley and long after Egypt's high destiny was fulfilled.
The most arresting quality of the Ancient Egyptians themselves, especially
those who lived in the Valley during the earliest centuries, IS this air of certainty,
of absolute, blissful assurance. The Egyptians had no need to assert themselves,
110 need to prosyletise, no need to convince anyone of the superiority of their
vision of the world: they simply seem to have known that such was the case. With
It, all the Egyptians of antiquity were the most humane of peoples, and despite
their supreme confidence in themselves and the immense achievements of their
culture, in scale, quantity and perfection of form and craftsmanship, they arc the
most approachable of all the peoples of the past. To a degree quite unlike any
other ancient people, their bequests to the world which came after them still live;
it may he said with truth that the Ancient Egyptians, through their assiduous
perpetuation of their names aud likenesses, and the abundanr power of the
multitudinous creations which they left behind them, are still among us.
Further reading
Baines, J. and Malek, .J. (1980) Atlas of Ancient Egypt, Amsterdam and Oxford.
Edwards, 1. E. S. (1993) The Pyramids of Egypt, 5th edn, London.
Grimal, N. (1992) A History of Ancient Egy/Jt, trans. Ian Shaw, Oxford.
Rice, M. (1997) Egypt's Legacy, London.
Shaw, 1. and Nicholson, P. (J 995) The British Museum Dictionary of Ancient
Egypt, London.
Trigger, B. et al. (I nS) Ancient Egypt: A Social History, Cambridge.
xxix
The Egyptian kingship
The supreme achievement of the people of the Nile Valley in the late fourth
millennium BC was the vision, ultimately hrought to reality, of the political unity
and coherance of the entire Valley, from the Firsr Cataract to the Mediterranean.
The river itself was the catalyst which gave life to this unprecedented and
audacious concept, which had no parallel in any other part of the world at the
time. The Valley was an entity by reason of the common way of life which the river
made possible for its people as riverine agriculturalists. The bounty of the river was
common to all; from it all drew their means of living at a level of prosperity
probably otherwise unknown in the late Neolithic world.
The river gave generously but it could also withhold its bounty. The cycle of
the seasons induced a sense of the regularity of nature and of the advantage of
order. To ensure the fertility of the land required a degree of organisation,
discipline, technique and social responsibility not to be found in any other part of
the world at the time.
From the Valley people's recognition of their common destiny, expressed
through their sharing of the Valley's unique resource, emerged in due time the
political construct which was its logical, perhaps inevitable, outcome: the nation
state. It is perhaps unlikely that anyone, even an Egyptian of the sort of genius
with which the Valley seems at this time to have been quite disproportionately
endowed, ever articulated such a concept so specifically. Nonetheless, the creation
of the nation state was the irresistible consequence of the processes which came
surging up out of the Valley people's collective unconscious at this time.
It may be said (though such a suggestion is unlikely to go wholly unchallenged)
that early Egypt's unique contribution to the human experience was the
recognition and naming of the archetypes which go to make up an ordered
human existence. Of such archetypes the most enduring and universal was
undoubtedly the concept of the kingship.
It cannot be said with absolute certainty when the kingship first emerged in
Egypt. The historiographical and Fgyptological convention is to define the
historical period in Egypt, beginning around 3150 BC by identifying a series of
'Dynasties' into which the rulers of the unified country are grouped. Such
.lvuasric groups mayor may nor be directly related farnilially; frequently they
were, and certainly in the earliest periods the succession seems usually to have
lx-cn in the direct line.
It is assumed that the original political structure of the Valley was a network of
[',reater and lesser principalities or chieftaincies, each with its ruling family, customs
.1I1d tutelary divin itics. Cerra inly, in historical times the ValIey showed a pronounced
r.ndency to fr'lgmcnt into local centres of control whenever the central a uthority of
rhc kingship weakened, as happened not infrequently over the course of the next
I hree thousand years. Equally, there was always a degree of competition amongsr thc
«nrities whom we call 'the gods', with otherwise quite obscure local divinities,
Ihrough the vagaries of politics and the rise to powerof a family of regional magnates,
.uhieving the status of national, even perhaps, universal divinities: a situation not
unknown ill later, less illustrious cultures than Egypt's.
The kings of the First Dynasty esrublislx«] the capital of the notionally united
, ountry at the point where the two principal divisions of the country, Upper and
lower Egypt, the southlands and the north, met, ncar the modern capital of
('Iiro, at the city which the Greeks knew as 'Memphis'. From the earliest times
ihc kings seem to have claimed sovereignty over the entire Two Lands, though the
.utual process of unification took a long time to be realised.
The arrival of the First Dynasty of kings marks an absolute change in the
n.iture, organisntion and iconography of Egypt. There are some indications 111 the
I'rcdynasuc period of the forms which later will come to be regarded as
uumemorially Egyptian, hut the differences between Egypt in the times before the
l.ings and Egypt during dynastic times are far greater than any similarities which
«.m be identified, The creation of the Egyptian kingship was so momentous an
.vcnt that the world was never entirely to be the same after it, for the naming of
II,c archetypes had identified and released them into the common consciousness
,,j humanity. Prom this time onwa rds, from the the end of the fourth millennium
1\\:, the pattern established in Egypt was to be repeated in many regions of the
world, the product not of diffusion but of a similar response to similar social
Il('cds and opportunities and the demands of each people's collective unconscious.
Certain conventions began to surround the king, evidently from the very
,·.Irliest days of his recognition. He assumed special ROYAL NAMES, in addition to
III, own hirth name. Initially three, later five In number, these were of profound
·.I!',nificance, each with its own deep resonances. He wore or carried special
I('galia, including a diversity of CROWNS with considerable symbolic significance.
.\11 of these marked him out from the generality of humankind.
In no case was the king of Egypt's essential difference from all other men more
I'ronounced than in the singular fact that he was a god; indeed in the early
,('nturies he was presumed to be the god, the Master of the Universe, by whose
will the sun rose, the Nile flooded and the stars turned in their motions. It was a
l.r.-athtakingl y audacious concept and it has to be seen for the paradox that it
«prcscnts, that the most intensely creative people of antiquity, capable of raising
.upcrb monuments and of devising one of the most subtle and complex societies
"I which we have knowledge, invested the Chief Officer of their state with the
xxx
XXXI
The Egyptian kingship
The Egyptian kingship
The Egyptian kingship
quality of divinity despite what must sometimes have been the all-too-obvious
evidences of his human nature.
The King of Egypt was the entire centre of the life of Egypt; he was the reason
for Egypt'S existence, and the Two Lands were the heavenly mansions brought
down to earth because of him, Everything that could secure the life, prosperity
and health of the king contributed to the perpetuity of Egypt. If the king lived,
Egypt lived.
The king was god because he was the incarnation of the' archetypal god of
kingship, Horus; he W'lS Horus because he was king. There has been much
misunderstanding of the adoption of the persona of Horus by the King of Egypt.
In later times, after the kingship had been in existence and had flourished for a
thousand years, Horus was represented ,1S thc son of Osiris, a latecomer into the
Egyptian corporation of divine entities, but who came to symbolise the king­
a frer-deurh , But there was a much more .mcienr Horus who W,lS perpetually
reincarnated in the living body of the king.
At his coronation, a wonderful event full of allusive panoply and the interplay
of a multitude of different forces, the king .issumr-d the DOUBLE CllOWN 'lnd rose
from the throne a god. The throne was personified hy the goddess Isis, who in
later times was identified in consequence as the mother of Horus. But Horus the
king was immensely more ancient than his alleged parentage by Osiris and Isis; as
with some of the most ancient of Egypt's gods, he must probably be seen as self­
begotten, from before time. At a particularly beautiful moment in the coronation,
all the birds of the air flew off to the four corners of the earth to proclaim the
return of the Horus-King. On this occasion the role of Isis was crucial in
conferring the divine kingship on the reincarnated Horus by contact with her lap;
the importance of the daughters of the king, who conveyed the kingship from one
generation to the next, is a reflection of Isis' part in the divine transmission of the
kingship to earth.
Even at the beginning of the first Dynasty, when the lineaments of the royal
Egyptian culture were being laid down, the king was Horus; indeed his great
royal style was 'The Horus X' and throughout Egyptian history the Horus-name
was the most sacred that the king possessed, It was the source of his power, as
king and as god,
The king was not merely the equa I of the gods; at certain occasions he was
their master and they deferred to him. Always they were to be found in his train,
attendant on him on the great occasions of state, when to mortal eyes they would
be impersonated by the great officers of the kingdoms and the High Priests of the
temples, though they were believed only to perform their offices as surrogates of
the king himself. The king was the supreme priest of Egypt, himself performing a
perpetual round of ceremonies, consecrating himself to himself. It was a
melancholy fact, however, that the power and prestige of the King of Egypt was
eventually to be undermined by the power of the clerical bureaucracies which
rose out of the temple servants originally appointed to serve and glorify the king.
The corrupting influence of religious bureaucracies, first manifested in Egypt,
II is one of the most singular characteristics of the emergent Egyptian state
",I''''h began to coalesce around the person of the king in the latter part of the
I, .urrh millennium HC that, from the outset, he was surrounded by a court of state
l-urc.nrcrats, with well defined roles and titles of considerable complexity. Many
,d Ihose who served the king and who are known, for example from the great
",,['ABA tombs in which they were buried, bore titles which it is hard to believe
\\ "IT invented summarily but which ruther must have had a far greater antiquity,
I<.1l"hing back to some structure which existed before the accepted appearance of
t lu: monarchy. This is another of the many enigmas which arc associated with the
"Ilgins and formative influences of the Egyptian state.
lhe kings of Egypt are the first true individuals known to history. Despite the
"l',lIseness of the surviving records there is no doubt of the power and
" lucverneuts of the early kings. Whilst the king was, in a profound sense, 'The
'''Tat Individual', he was also the soul of Egypt, through whom Egypt lived.
As time went by, so the nature of the Egyptian kingship underwent adaptation
,111.1 change. For the whole course of the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom the
I, IlIg enjoyed a unique and absolute paramountcy, when he was regarded as an
numanent divinity. The very success of the institution, however, was its undoing.
\., t he kingship became involved in more and more elaborate state enterprises, of
,,11Ich the building of pyramids was but one example of many, the king came to
.l.pcnd more and more on his partisans, in the court and the temple. The
«mployruenr of short-term expediencies, beloved of all politicians in every
1',"lIcration with no concern for those who would follow them, was a device first
pr.rctised by the Egyptian monarchy in the closing decades of the Old Kingdom,
'" secure the loyalty of the great magnates by bestowing on them more and more
i oyal lands and showering them with privileges and exemptions which eventually
"ere to cripple the state.
That the kingship was the archetypal Egyptian political institution, however,
1V,IS unmistakeably confirmed at the restoration of a coherent political structure
III the Valley which was the particular triumph of the kings of the Eleventh
I iyuasty and their immediate predecessors, so skilfully built on by their
<uccessors in the Twelfth Dynasty. The Middle Kingdom restored the power of
I It.. kingship after the pressures which it underwent at the end of the Old
I\lllgdom, though it was subtly altered; the king was a god but, more important,
I", was the Chief Executive of the Two Lands. He was as formidable in this role
,IS he had been in the early centuries of the kingship when his divinity was his
.lominanr nature, to the exclusion of all other considerations.
So immense was the span of Egyptian history, in all its forms enduring for more
I It" n three thousand years, that its institutions, including the kingship, altered as
I It" world outside the Valley altered; sometimes influences percolated into the
Valley which provoked dramatic change, as when Semitic-speaking peoples or
:\ lricans from the south ruled the country. These altered states could be greatly
lxneficial to much of the historic Egyptian persona as, for example, the kingship
xxxii
XXXIU
11,1" [0
become a familiar if no more welcome experience for the societies which
\\ "I" to follow Egypt, down to the present day.
The Egyptian kingship
mutated into a prototypical oriental imperial monarchy, resulting in the
splendour and rich diversity of the New Kingdom, which endured in its own
right for half a millennium.
The Egyptian kingship was a unique institution, the first of its kind anywhere
on earth. The kings were always represented as being more than mortal and, as
the Lands' presiding genius, the earlier generations of the kings perhaps achieved
a more enduring set of consequences, of more Llsting worth, than any other
group of individuals known to history.
The gods of Egypt
Further reading
Frankfort, H. (1948) Kingship and the Gods, Chiclgo IL.
Hoffman, M. (1980) L\gypt Before the Pharaohs, London.
Kemp, B. .J. (1989) Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Ciuiiization, London.
Rice, M. (I990) Egypt'S Making, London,
Spencer, A, .J. (]993) Earl» fC,gypt: The Rise of Ciuilisation in the Nile Valley,
London.
XXXIV
Ihe non-human, supranatural entities known collectively in Egypt as neticr,
word customarily translated as 'god', arc perhaps best understood as forces of
n.u ure, even as powers beyond nature, rather than the more conventional idea
"j them as anthropomorphised beings or as rhcriocephalic emanations, Some of
I hem were indeed represented in human or humanoid form, others manifested
1I,,'mse!ves as animals, birds, insects or reptiles, but these forms concealed rather
i11;1I1 revealed their true nature.
Many of the netjeru had their origins in remote times when they were
«knrified with particular parts of the Nile Valley; some of them retained these
.ivsociations throughout Egyptian history whilst others became national gods.
lhcse were identified with the king or with what were considered to be particular
.kpnrtmcnts of divine responsibility: the sun and the moon, truth and order,
, n-ation, or the vital essence which informs all living tbings.
Some of the great gods were already powerful at the dawn of Egyptian history.
lhese included ATUM, the spirit of creation; RE, the sun-god; THOTH, the god of
wisdom and the moon; HATIIOI( and ISIS, forms of the great goddess; NEITH, a
w.irrior goddess from the north; PTAH, the supreme creative force; SET, originally
II", god of the south, later the god of the desert and storm, later still the
l'lTsonification of malignancy and destruction. This last role arose from his
.upposed part ill the murder of his brother, OSIRIS (in fact a relatively late arrival
'" the Egyptian pantheon, who is attested towards the end of the Old Kingdom,
r hough older gods in the Abydos region were sometimes thought of as Osiris'
""Trunners) and his conflict with Osiris' son, HORUS,
Behind even the greatest and most ancient of these entities was the veiled
I'"',ence of 'He whose Name is Hidden', a mysterious, all-powerful being to
"hom even the mightiest of the gods deferred; the most ancient Horus in his
I .ilcon manifestation was said to perch upon the battlements of this god's
, «Icstial palace. This Hidden One, however, was never revealed during Egypt's
1,1, 'I i me, though AMUN was, at least according to one of the several theogonies
.vliich the Egypti.ins maintained, sometimes acknowledged as 'Hidden'.
.1
xxxv
The gods of Egypt
The gods of Egypt
Before the Fourth Dynasty, the Pyramid Age, when for reasons which arc unclear
a change in religious orientation took place, Egypt seems principally to have
followed stellar cults, identifying certain stars and constellations for particular
regard. There is no doubt that the stars played an important role in determining the
orientation, for example, of the massive architectural and engineering projects
which characterise the Old Kingdom. Architects used the stars to establish true
north and to align their buildings to the cardinal points with astonishing precision;
they also were capable of locking an entire building on to a particular star,
doubtless to allow its light to shine directly into the sanctuary on nights of special
festivals. It is thus entirely consonant with the Egyptian mind to have drawn down
the configuration of those constellations which were especially important to them
and to have replicated their positions in the Valley, a suggestion which has raised as
much controversy as it has interest. Much Egyptian thought was devoted to uniting
the two realms of earth and sky, just as the early kings sought to unify the notional
'Two Lands' into which Egypt was always said to be divided.
When the kings of the First Dynasty began their programme of unifying the
Valley, creating a nation state out of a jigsaw puzzle of disconnected
principalities, some of the gods are said to have been 'born'. The introduction
of systems of worship and observance for the 'new' gods suggests that the First­
Dynasty kings were as innovative in the recognition of the divine powers as they
were in the secular management of the state.
In the early days of the kingship, in the Archaic Period and the early Old
Kingdom, the gods and the observances directed towards them were the exclusive
concern of the king. He was their equal, indeed, except for the very greatest, their
ruler, as the Incarnate Horus. Later, his position was somewhat reduced, but the
gods were still his companions and supporters.
The nature of the society's attitude to the gods changed, as did so much else,
after the end of the Old Kingdom. Then Osiris, possibly originating in Western
Asia, emerged as a god of redemption, becoming assimilated with local gods in
Abydos and eventually himself becoming the principal divinity of that part of
Egypt. Gradually the cult of Osiris became general; for the first time the people
were able to approach the gods and something like corporate worship appeared.
Osiris offered the possibility of redemption and eternal life to all, not merely to
the king and his closest coadjutors, as originally was the case. It was, however,
not a generalised system of ritual to which all had access until much later in
Egypt's history, when influences from outside began to change the indigenous
Egyptian forms, in cult practices as in other aspects of life in the Valley.
The gods were served by priests, of different grades and functions. In the early
centuries all Egyptians of standing were expected to serve as priests in the
temples, for an agreed period each year; this represented more of a social
obligation than evidence of a religious vocation. Later, as the perquisites of the
temple hierarchies grew, the priesthood became increasingly professional. Many
of the most rewarding of the temple benefices became hereditary fiefs.
Nonetheless, the king was notionally the High Priest of every cult, the temple
priests merely his surrogates. However, each major temple community was
,III,'cled by a High Priest whose power was often very great. Some of the High
l'ruvrhoods, such as that of Ptah of Memphis, Re of Heliopolis and Amun of
l lubcs (though Anum was something of a parvenu divinity, only coming to
u.unmal prominence after the rise of his city and its princes in the Middle
k III)'.dom) were the greatest political figures in the state; eventually, the power of
',""Il' of them was to rival, if it did not exceed, the power of the kings.
Ikligion in Egypt was not originally concerned with considerations of morality
'" behaviour. Its practice, in so far as it related to the divinities, was the
""I'onsibility only of the kmg and his immediate officers. Its concern was to
, """IT the security and well-being of the Egyptian state and of its personification,
rlu- king. The individual initially was of no significance in the scheme of things.
, .r.ulually, however, the idea of the gods controlling human destiny, from which
"'Iginally they were remote, gained acceptance and the great temples became
100,I"es of immense wealth, power and prestige as they conducted the round of
,"emonies held in honour of the gods for the benefit of the people.
1I1e Egyptians were not very much given to philosophical speculation, Ruled
I'\ 'Ill immanent divinity, most of the great and perplexing questions which have
'" .upied the minds of later peoples would have seemed irrelevant to them; the
I, lit h was always with them. Certainly, concepts such as truth, justice and the
honourable treatment of one's fellows were deeply ingrained and were clearly
1',lSsed on to subsequent cultures. Later cultures, when considering the
,,,mplexity and apparent contradictions of Egyptian religious 'beliefs', have
uuvitably tended to view them through the filter of their own belief systems and
1t,ligious prejudices. Mnch of what is thought to be known about the beliefs of
lite Egyptians is based on relatively late sources, many of them Greek; it is not
.',Isy to discover the archetypes which expressed the essential natnre of the
I'l'Ople's convictions in the centuries during which Egyptian belief systems were
.l.-veloping.
The great temple priesthoods evidently did offer what are probably best
i.cognised as parables or mythologies, which were designed principally to
«xplain origins - of the cosmos, of Egypt, of the kingship - and, in a peculiarly
powerful fashion, to convey a sense of the mystery of creation. At least three
distinct 'theologies' (a word which is really too formal in its meaning to be very
11<'1 pful here) existed simultaneously, These were identified with Heliopolis,
«mphasising the role of the sun and Re as the symbols of the Divine Kingship;
with Memphis and the creator god Ptah; and with Hermopolis and the god
1'1 roth. At Abydos much later, after the rise of the Theban princes in the Middle
I" ingdorn, the cults of Osiris became very important. Until it was later superceded
I" some degree by the cults of Arnun, the cult of Osiris then became something
like a national religion; with its ideas of personal salvation and the suffering and
dying god, it clearly had a considerable influence on other societies and peoples
long after Egypt had ceased to be the dominant power in the Near East.
The nearest that the Egyptians got to articulating a philosophical principle in
relation to one of the divine entities was expressed in the person of a very ancient
nctjer who, paradoxically, was represented as a young girl. This was MA'AT, in
XXXVI
XXXVII
The gods of Egypt
The gods of Egypt
whose name the king was said to live. Ma'ar was Truth, justice and, most
important of all, Order. The primary reason for the perpetuation of the monarchy
was that the king was the custodian of Ma'ar. By his existence in Ma'ar and, as
the rubric went, by ensuring his 'Life, Prosperity, Health', the prosperity of Egypt
(uud hence of the universe) was ensured.
Ma'at features in the most beautiful of all the creation myths devised by the
Egyptian sages. When the Creator decided to initiate the process of creation his
first act was to raise Ma 'at to his lips and to kiss her. Equally poetic, it may be
felt, was the myth which had the process of creation begnn by the lonely cry of a
waterfowl in the marshes.
As the years went by and Egypt grew old, the nature of the gods inevitably
changed too. foreign divinities were brought into the pantheon and the Egyptian
gods began to take on the common nature which most ancient societies
attributed to all the multitudinous divinities who plagued or comforted them.
The king remained a god, even a great god, but he was no longer the sovereign of
the entire universe. The process of democratising the gods began with the
introduction of Osiris to the company of the gods and, it might be said, has
continued ever since.
In the last centuries of Egypt's history the myth of Egypt began to gain
widespread currency, and newly emergent societies around the Mediterranean
and far beyond, began to speculate about the nature of the Egyptian experience
and of the Valley people's apprehension of the divine. Then the Egyptian gods,
even the relatively debased ones who appeared as the ancient world neared its
end, acquired a quality of mystery and potency in the minds of impressionable
people, newly civilised (to the extent of living in cities) and beginning to question
the often confused and disreputable colleges of gods to which they had become
su bjected.
The latest manifestation of the divine powers which emerged in the Nile Valley
was the appearance of a bearded, patriarchal High God, a conflation of Osiris
and the sky gods of the north such as Zeus, and of the immensely ancient figure
of the divine mother nursing her divine child; Isis cradles Horus on her lap. This
expressed in visual form the divine origins of the Egyptian kingship, and it
became the most appealing icon of the newly arrived cult of Christianity, though
celebrating a divine figure whom the ancient Egyptians themselves would have
found deeply improbable.
In the centuries after the effective end of Egypt's history, her gods have
continued to haunt the imaginations of peoples in lands of which the Egyptians
themselves can have had no knowledge. No corporation of divinities, or of the
principles which may be thought to give expression to the divine, has ever
remotely approached the Egyptian in power and mystery. The Egyptians first
gave names and identity to the great archetypes which arc represented by the
netjeru; and in doing so, gave them perpetual life.
XXXVIII
~(
IME OF THE PRINCIPAL GODS OF EGYPT
.uuun (alt. Amon)
I Ill" Hidden One', a god of the "lhcba n region who eventually became the
divinity of the royal lines and the nearest approach to a national god of
I I'YPt. The Temple of Anum in Thebes was one of the most powerful religious
1""11dations, especially in the later periods, eventually threatening the royal
I" .ncipal
Illlwer.
.uuljeti
\ god of the Delta with whom OSIRIS, who
''Own of Busiris, was assimilated.
WJS
first associated with the Delta
'\lthur
\ god identified as the creative power of the sun, later recognised as a god of war.
suubis
!\ very ancient divinity, originating in Ahydos, He is represented as a wolf or
i.ukai; he was associated especially with mummification, the practice of which
IV,IS the responsibility of his priests.
/\/Jis
A manifestation of Prah incarnate in a bull with particular markings and physical
«hnracteristics, Apis was known in the First Dynasty. His cult became widespread
III the Late Period, when the chosen bull (and his mother) were given lives of
!',reat luxury in the temple at Memphis and, at death, sumptuous obsequies at
~aqqara.
!Ish
i\ god of deserts, of great antiquity, sometimes identified with Set, particularly in
t he south.
Aten
Ihe personification of the sun's rays, proclaimed hy AMENHOTEI' IV-AKHENATEN
the supreme god of Egypt. After the king's death Aten was overturned by the
priests of Amun, a return to whose worship was demanded by them, signalled by
such events as the renaming of King Tutaukhatcn, Akhenaten's eventual
successor, as TUTANKHAMUN.
:IS
XXXIX
The gods of Egypt